External Monitor

[miloblithe]

I'm thinking of buying an external monitor that I'd eventually hook up to a new mini or mac pro. Could anyone help me with this questions though? Can a 500Mhz iBook G3 and/or a 1Ghz eMac (Radeon 7500) run a Dell 2007 display? What resolution could they run the display in? 1680x1050? Something less?

Thanks

 

[Kardashian]

I think it depends on your video card and resolution the monitor can display, as to what your optimum resolution is - but I do know that Macs can connect via DVI as standard or via VGA, with the inc. adapter (not sure when they started inc. them - but they can be purchased if not)

And I think Dell uses VGA, but I may be wrong - just past experience.

 

[robbieduncan]

You will obviously need to use the screen spanning hack as neither of your machines support spanning officially and will only run the external display as a mirror of the internal one.

 

[baby duck monge]

I'm thinking of buying an external monitor that I'd eventually hook up to a new mini or mac pro. Could anyone help me with this questions though? Can a 500Mhz iBook G3 and/or a 1Ghz eMac (Radeon 7500) run a Dell 2007 display? What resolution could they run the display in? 1680x1050? Something less?

Thanks

I ran a 19" CRT at 1600x1200 with the screen spanning hack (so the VRAM was split between that and the built in monitor) on my 800MHz G3 iBook. It was useable for everything I did (no games), but couldn't handle the animation for things like expose. The iBook you're talking about has half the VRAM mine did, so to use it as a second monitor would probably be pushing the envelope and you very well may be disappointed. And it could be that it's not even supported.

In the case of either computer, you would want to run the monitor at its native resolution - that should be 1600x1200 on a 20.1" display (1680x1050 is for 21" widescreens).

As for the eMac, it should do just as well as my iBook did provided you hack the firmware to enable spanning. You can find things to make this happen with a google search.

 

[Queso]

Because these two models only support video mirroring officially, you're pretty much stuck with the maximum resolutions of the Apple monitors unless you hack the firmware. The eMac goes up to 1280 x 960 and the Radeon 7500 comes with 32MB RAM, so it's not going to be quick at that speed but will support your monitor. The iBook will only go to 1024 x 768 and uses an old ATI Rage Mobility with only 8MB RAM. Don't expect much.

Both models use VGA for video out, so no DVI.

 

[miloblithe]

But it sounds like it would work? I don't have grand expectations. Basically, the iBook is semi-dead (the screen no longer lights up) https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/163913/

I just want to get all my files off of it.

And the eMac, if I can use the external screen to watch videos while using the Internet on the internal one, I'll be completely happy.

Thanks.